Need evidence that the world of blogging is usurping “mainstream media?”

The Democrats announced today that they will allow bloggers to sit with the state delegations in Denver’s Pepsi Center. That leapfrogs bloggers over, umm, radio and TV, which are allowed access to the delegates for only a limited period of time. For radio folks, for example, floor passes are granted with, normally, 20-minute time limits.

Says Howard Dean, the boss of the Democratic Party in a news release today:

“The Internet is the most significant tool for building democracy since the invention of the printing press.”

Of course, you can’t really learn much from the infommercial known as a political convention (I’m speaking of the nightly program here). But the symbolism is significant, especially since at the last convention — Boston in 2004 — the bloggers were confined to a special section for irrelevancy.

In Denver, Daily Kos is providing free wiFi and workspace near the convention site and YouTube is sponsoring a blogging area. The Dems are also providing a live stream of the convention (and I presume the GOP will, too).

For the Republican convention in St. Paul, the party intends to credential a “limited number” of bloggers.

I had to hang up (I was waiting for a call from the Holy Cross prof for this post) before I could ask the question about what kinds of bloggers are going to be allowed on the floor — would Republican-leaning “state blogs” be allowed.

Blogs, of course, are tailor made for a political convention. What will be worth watching is to what degree the partisan political blogs question what is happening, and also to what extent they seek out material that isn’t being spoon-fed from the convention producers.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started the two most popular blogs in the history of MPR and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories but reflections , observations, and debate.